Security vendor, AVG (A/NZ), has signed on 3460 resellers and is aiming for 4000 by February 2011, according to its corporate sales director, Michael Dowling.
The company has recently launched the AVG Internet Security 2011 product line-up.
It has increased its reseller base by 44 per cent compared to the 2400 it had 12 months ago.
Dowling says its Direct Renewal Guarantee programme, released at the start of March, was a major factor in retaining partners in the programme.
“Three years ago how many people would have a computer technician in their house?” he says. “It’s hard to say ‘what is the end point’, but what you can conclude is that there’ll be continued growth.”
Dowling acknowledged there was a perception of AVG as “the free product” and that there was work to do to change brand perception. But he said the company was working to change it with the new product releases.
“There are a lot of small resellers and I’m thinking those small ones have an affinity with what we’re doing,” he says. “We’ve been taking a lot of hints in the reseller events we’re running to try and better understand them and where they want us to put focus and effort.”
AVG (A/NZ) managing director, Peter Cameron, says the vendor’s local sales are still mainly direct rather than indirect. But he claimed the ratio was shifting in favour of resellers.
“We’re increasing that percentage (of indirect sales),” he says. “We still have people ring and ask us who the local reseller in their area is. There have been lots of times we haven’t had people in the area. From that point of view, there’s the opportunity to expand from a geographic point of view, but we don’t want too many in the marketplace.”
